The Internet Review of SF, perhaps the best review and non-fiction F/SF ‘zine going these days, has announced they will be ceasing publication in a few months.

I’m bummed to hear that.  Lois Tilton, their legendary short fiction reviewer, reviewed every issue of my magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and I really appreciated that.  Her reviews were sometimes a bit grumpy, as they are known among writers to sometimes be, but she was always fair and honest, and when she praised a story, you knew that that praise had been earned.

I hope that short fiction reviews in general and Ms. Tilton’s in particular will keep going in some form, in this age of unclear business models for online F/SF both fiction and non-fiction.  Non-fiction and short fiction reviews are a vital if less glamorous part of the field, and it would be a shame if they dried up.

The current wildfire blog topic in SF/F short fiction circles has been very low-paying magazines and whether it’s worth it for an author to submit to them. One of the suggested benefits of submitting is for young authors to get publication credits, which they then can cite in their cover letters to other magazines in order to impress the editors.

I read a blog post by Ann Leckie, Associate Editor at Podcastle, which pretty much completely epitomizes what I feel about fiction credits in a cover letter when I read submissions for BCS.

I do glance at credits in cover letters, and they do have some impact on how much time or length I will give a story to let it impress me. But by far the most important thing is the quality of the story. By far.

And I share her admission that there are a very few credits that can have the opposite effect. They would never make me discount a great story, and they would never put me off on reading future submissions by that author. But on occasion, they can have a negative impact on how much time or length I will give that story to impress me.

So I share her admonition: write as well as you can. In the case of BCS, where I include comments in all rejection letters, perhaps spend a few moments thinking about why I said your story didn’t work for me or for BCS. Then please send me a better one.

It’s Nebula Award nomination season again, when any Active or Associate member of SFWA can nominate works for the Nebula Awards.

My short story “Ebb,” from Space and Time #107, is eligible. It’s a neat little story, with an interesting protagonist and a subtly fascinating world, and it garnered glowingly positive reviews from both Tangent Online and SFReader.com.

Should you feel it worthy, I would appreciate your nomination.

I also direct you to my magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  Because of the date range for Nebula eligibility, all the stories BCS has ever published are eligible.  For a shortlist of our best-reviewed stories and the Nebula categories they fall into, click here.  For a full list of all stories and their Nebula categories, click here.

Thanks very much!

Jason Sanford, writer and editor of storySouth, has a comprehensive blog post on online F/SF magazines.  He gives an insightful overview, then lists the top pro- and semi-pro ‘zines.

He gives fine praise to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, saying that we deserve to be designated as a SFWA pro market.  Thanks very much!  We do meet all the qualifications, now that we’ve been publishing for a full year,  and recently I began the application process to have SFWA designate us thus.